Join us at the University of Melbourne on Monday 26th April for a one-hour panel discussion surrounding the idea of cultural cringe. The concept was brought to life in a 1950 Meanjin essay by A A Phillips, who despaired of Australian cultural genuflection towards the British. To what cultures does contemporary Australia cringe, and for what reasons? What is the role of a literary culture in emboldening the national conversation?
Meanjin editor Jonathan Green will host a panel of writers, thinkers and commentators who will explore Meanjin’s part in an exploration of an Australian cultural identity.
This is the second in of a series of events that are a collaboration between the University’s Archives and Special Collections and Meanjin to celebrate our 80th year.
The event will commence at 12pm AEDT at the William McMahon Ball theatre in the Old Arts Building at the University of Melbourne. Click here for instructions about how to RSVP to attend in person.
You can also register to attend the event via Zoom here.
About the panellists:
Declan Fry is an essayist, critic, and proud descendant of the Yorta Yorta. Born on Wongatha country in Kalgoorlie, in 2009 he received the Tom Collins Prize in Australian Literature, and, as joint winner, the Todhunter Literary Award in 2013. He currently lives on unceded Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung land and is a board member of Books ‘n’ Boots, an organisation distributing books to remote and regional Aboriginal communities. His work has appeared in Meanjin, Australian Book Review, Westerly, and Overland.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the memoir The Hate Race, the short-fiction collection Foreign Soil, the poetry collection Carrying the World, and is the editor of Best Australian Stories 2017.
Rachael Weaver is an ARC Senior Research Fellow in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of The Criminal of the Century (2006) and, with Ken Gelder, The Colonial Journals: and the Emergence of Australian Literary Culture (2014) and Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy (2017).
Alice Pung is an award-winning writer, editor, teacher and lawyer based in Melbourne. She is the bestselling author of Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter and the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson. Her first novel, Laurinda, won the Ethel Turner Prize at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
